Leaving my full time job for 1 client

Question

About a year ago I tried to start a consulting company. approached potential clients with my services but did not get anywhere. I am now working full time and one of them has come back to me and would like to do business. Now, will it be wise to quit my full time job and focus on my business with this client?

Answer 1

Basically, this will come down to your personal circumstances.

There are a few factors one generally needs to consider when going alone:

1. Your financial situation
2. The reliability of the first client (do they have enough work; will they pay)
3. How likely it is that you will be able to attract other clients
4. How your jurisdiction views self-employed people with only a single client

I agree with @Scott that depending on a single client is risky - but in my experience going alone rarely happens in the ideal way. At some time, push comes to shove - and one needs to take a leap of faith.

If your first client turns out to be solid, it could be a great platform for continued success - as finding that first client is often much harder than finding the second and third. However, beware of the potential 'pitfall of success' where you neglect pursuing other clients because things are great with the first one.

Answer 2

The most of experienced freelancers always advise never abandoning your current job. If you wish to freelance only do it keeping your current one and working part-time as freelancer. At least it'd be ideal in the freelancer point of view. Think carefully to respect of that your current one would be, is actually your more secure foundation.

To freelance is a highly risky form of job due to following very important point in my humble opinion:

Customers: they aren't constant, your one flow could change for more or less going to almost zero (in the worst scenario) at any moment. Freelancers get used to relate that can there are months on that can there is no any one (here is where comes in the point which I related some lines above about your current job as your secure foundation).*

The following article bellow could help you to reflect better about you issue:

Ask A Freelancer: Can I Quit My Full-Time Job and Freelance For My Employer?

The article above has an very important point to be carefully thought of check it out on the following paragraph cited bellow:

You risk not having work or not having enough work. You risk underselling your services and earning less money than you should or overbidding and losing a project. You have nobody at your company to back you up if things go wrong with a client. You need to be willing to take those risks, learn from your mistakes, and always keep moving forward.